Donald L. Savage
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
February 7, 1994
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Diane Ainsworth
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-5011)
RELEASE: 94-20
NASA BEGINS DEVELOPMENT OF NEW MARS EXPLORATION PROGRAM
NASA will continue to explore Mars with a new exploration
strategy in fiscal year 1995. The Mars Surveyor program calls for
start of development of a small orbiter that will be launched in
November 1996 to study the surface of the red planet.
The Mars Surveyor orbiter will lay the foundation for a
series of missions to Mars in a decade-long program of Mars
exploration. The missions will take advantage of launch
opportunities about every 2 years as Mars comes into alignment
with Earth.
NASA requested $77 million in development costs in FY 1995
for the new Mars orbiter. The announcement was made during NASA's
press briefing on the 1995 budget request. The 1995 fiscal year
runs from Oct. 1, 1994, to Sept. 30, 1995.
The Mars Surveyor program will be conducted within the
constraints of a cost ceiling of approximately $100 million per
year. The orbiter will be small enough to be launched on a Delta
expendable launch vehicle and will carry roughly half of the
science payload that flew on Mars Observer, which was lost on Aug.
21, 1993. The specific instruments will be selected later.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.,
will issue a request for proposals to industry in mid-March to
solicit potential spacecraft designs. Selection of a contractor
to build the spacecraft will be made by July 1.
NASA envisions an orbiter/lander pair of spacecraft as the
next in this series of robotic missions to Mars.
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The orbiter planned for launch in 1998 would be even smaller
than the initial Mars Surveyor orbiter and carry the remainder of
the Mars Observer science instruments. It would act as a
communications relay satellite for a companion lander, launched
the same year, and other landers in the future, such as the
Russian Mars '96 lander. The U.S. Pathfinder lander, set to land
on Mars in 1997, will operate independently of the Mars orbiter.
The 1998 orbiter/lander spacecraft would be small enough to
be launched on an expendable launch vehicle about half the size
and cost of the Delta launch vehicle.
JPL will manage mission design and spacecraft operations of
the Mars Surveyor for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C.
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